What do you think really happened on 9/11?

Question

I've heard people saying that when the WTC collapsed, it seemed like a controlled demolition. I also watched a special on the history channel, that said the floor truss' fire proofing failed, which made them pancake and cause the sides to bow in. I'm not sure what to believe, just because there is a lot of evidence supporting both theories. I can't say I have an opinion about what happened either. What do you think really happened?

Apparently weeks before the attack, people were sent home early, or told to not even show up to work. There are plenty of videos on youtube about all of this.

Answer 1

I can't actually say what happened from an engineering stand point. I've seen the documentaries for each theory, but I'm no expert. What I can say is that I think everyone, not just Americans, but everyone...well....had their eyes opened to the horrific nature of man's inhumanity to man once again.

I think it's a day that we, as Americans....myself included, lost a lot of our innocence and innate faith in the good intentions of our fellow humans of ill intentions. It was also a day that I learned of the heroic nature of everyday people when faced with extreme crisis.

Answer 2

I would like to invite anybody who has experience in demolitions and controlled implosions to weigh in on this topic. The rest of us can trade theories till the cows come home, but a few facts about how the building materials would react in a fire of that magnitude and about how controlled explosive implosions actually behave, will resolve the question.

BTW, for those who have a 360 page, Answers is asking people for their opinion as to whether 9/11 should be memorialized with a holiday. I think that we will eventually do so, but we must not forget that there are still people there who, every day, say they want to see the West and Israel destroyed and brought into 'submission' (which sounds like slavery to me.) We still have deadly enemies out there. We must win the war before we can safely mark 9/11 with a holiday.

An idea that just occurs to me, if it was NOT a controlled demolition, if there were NOT explosive charges secretly placed all over the interior of the building (and, how could that be done without the people who work there every day not noticing...?), then the fact that there were few deaths other than those actually inside the buildings is little short of a miracle. If one tower or the other had tipped, domino-wise, into other, nearby buildings, the death toll could easily have been many-fold worse. I'm not suggesting at all that we should be thankful for the attack, but we can be thankful that things were not worse.

Answer 3

What do we think really happened? How in the world can you ask that question when we could all see with our own eyes what happened.

Whether it seemed like a controlled demolition or not, the fact of the matter is that the intense fire eventually caused steel supports to give way. Once that happened, the floors pancaked and the towers fell.

You know, the real importance here is that so many innocent people lost their lives that day. As they do every day - all over the world.

Answer 4

Watch the Alex Jones video.
He shows the owner of the WTC stating on TV that WTC 7 was brought down with a controlled demolition. It usually takes weeks to set up a controlled demolition, however, this one was 'pulled' in a very short time just because there was a fire.
Hummmmmmmmmm

Answer 5

Just because there it two stories, the truth is not in the middle.

Controlled demolition is impossible. The towers collapsed at the point of impact.

There is NO impelling reason to do that in the first place.

For the Oil? We are still going to buy the oil from Iraq, not take it.

For cleanup of the towers? The government could have declared the towers a national treasure and spent the 500 Million dollars that it would have taken to get them up to par. That would have been much less expensive than 500Billion spend on terrorism.

There is NO REASON that anyone with anything between their ears would think it was a controlled demolition.

Peace!

Answer 6

What really happened?

A bunch of Moslems hijacked four planes in the US:

Two of the planes crashed into the WTC and the damaged caused the buildings to collapse.

One plane crashed into the Pentagon.

On the fourth plane, the passengers tried to take control of the plane, crashing the plane in a field in Pennsylvania.

All in all, they murdered 2,996 Anericans.

Answer 7

Which is more likely? A group of terrorists who hate America and have tried to blow up the WTC before, hijack some planes and fly them into the buildings, OR the United States Government killing thousands of its own citizens.

Answer 8

What happened is really what happened. If you start believing all of these stupid conspiracy theories, then the terrorist win. I saw the whole thing live with the exception of the first building, and believe me it was real and un-edited. Don't forget that. Don't let them win by being ignorant.

Answer 9

I too watched something on tv about this yesterday, was quite interesting.
They determined after thousands of hours of research that the floors did not pancake. The heat from the fire caused the steel bars holding the floors to bow, they did not break. This bowing cause the bars to pull in about 5 ft which then caused the vertical bars around the building that they were attached to to snap (originally designed to keep the building stable in the wind), causing the building to collapse.
It was finally determined that there were no structurally flaws with the building. The collapse was due to the fire and the impact.

Think about it, nothing is entirely indestructible.

"Why WTC Steel Towers Collapsed at One Blow - Architect's Analysis
Many people asked why the US WTC twin steel towers in New York couldn't survive the terrorist attacks and instead of withstanding the bump of the planes they collapsed and were practically razed?

People's queries were mainly about why the twin towers fell all of a lump when they were merely hit on the upper and middle part? And why they directly fell down instead of toppled over from above?

People saw a big fire with dozens of tons of aircraft fuel at first that had done its work in softening and melting away all steels struck. Soon after collapsing of the upper stories, heat was conducted to stories below as is seen in a "domino effect" leading to the destruction of the two steel structures in their entirety. After watching videos experts say that it was not the damages inflicted but the big fire followed in destroying the two towers.

Professor Wu Huanjia from Qinghua University says in an interview that the big fire must be to blame for softening and melting away the steel, paralyzing and destruction of the towers as mere plane crash is not strong enough to topple the two large tower structures.

There were also intrinsic flaws with skyscrapers that had led to the fall of the WTC towers, for such architectural giants must be built of steel, which softens by heat and loses its strength. Of course, refractory coating must be applied when the towers were constructed but you can never expect them to endure such large conflagrations.

When constructed, experts say, the towers had been designed to survive hitting short of complete fire-fighting and anti-blast systems to be built. If the plane crash hit the towers' lower part, fire could probably be put under control and such a devastating disaster might be averted. So one can see the attacks were well knotted by the extremely intelligent terrorists.

Qian Jiaru, a civil engineering professor from Qinghua University, tells reporter that the WTC towers were supported by intense steel poles as world advanced architectural structures at that time. Why the Empire State Building, built 40 years earlier than WTC towers, didn't collapse when hit by an American military airplane in 1943? This is because that airplane was relatively small and carried less fuel that didn't cause big fires. On the other hand, the Empire State Building has steel pole supports and concrete fireproof coating that can endure bigger fire.

Besides, for an architect in designing a building he would surely consider such factors as wind, earthquake and fire though impossible for him to foresee suicidal airplane crashes, not to say airplanes loaded with some dozens tons of aviation fuel to cause bigger fires than ordinary ones.

This time's Boeing 757 belongs to a model that can carry 35 tons of fuel and Boeing 767 51 tons. They are long-distance flights from east America to the west so estimated fully loaded. Soon after take-off they changed route with only a little fuel consumed, as a result almost all top-quality fuel was poured into the twin towers.

The fully loaded 757 airplane was no less than a "super flying bomb", expert says. Calculation shows a 757 can carry a total weight of 20 tons on top of 35 tons weight of airplane itself and fuel, and a flying speed of 900 km/hour equals to a weight of 495,000 tons, altogether it gathers an equivalent force of about 20,000 kg yellow explosives.

Most high buildings would be reinforced to carry weight and resist earthquake, but not for fire and explosion. It is enough for 800 kg yellow explosives to destroy a 50-storied building. Therefore inestimable damages are caused by 20,000 explosive capacity plus high speed hits. "
from: http://english.people.com.cn/english/200109/20/eng20010920_80655.html

to add to this, the buildings did not collapse instantly. This saved countless lives as many were able to get out during that time.

Answer 10

Well ...all is possible in todays world....but i just cant believe that the most powerfull country in the world watched their buildings go down and not only that but waited for the other one's to hit!!! i dont know what to think but honestly....i dont think it was a shock for alot of people....knowing muslims ...and all ....and about america and isreal i think that there was something related to the goverment....alot of people believe that ben laden is a servant for Us goverment ...he gave them a reason to start wars in name of fighting terror....and all tto blame muslims sure! but is it possible that USA ...that is so powerful ...that they got angelina jolie's pictures in Namibia or whatever ...cant know where is ben laden??? oh come on!.....and if they know where he is ...then they cant catch him!?....so i think the only misleaded one's are us the people we dont know what to believe ....but i believe it was all in favore of isreal and who supports it....and these events were tragidies for people ...but for alot it was just a tool to ease things for them....after it we have wars and accusations and misunderstanding.....alot of things so ...no one is sure:)